Of Innocence and Experience
by Yveta
Summary: Six months after the end of 'Twas But a Dream of Thee, Joe and Emerson are happily married, though still recovering from the events of earlier in the year. But with the arrival of a new case, and an old acquaintance, wounds they thought had been healed forever are ripped open, risking everything they hold dear. Can they repair themselves, or will they be irreparably torn apart?
1. Chapter 1

The graveyard was just as he remembered it, but as though a thousand years had passed. Each gravestone emerged bent, aged out of the ground, cracked and groaning like a maw filled with rotting teeth. So crumbling and overgrown were they that if ever there were any names upon them, they were lost long ago. Weeds upon weeds writhed their growth over the dying stones. The bitter-green stinging nettle, yellowed now but its bite still intact, clumped in the edges. The black bindweed slithered its steady progress around the grave, choking as it went. He could almost feel it as though it grew around his neck, strangling, suffocating. One solitary marble angel looked down upon the scene, a slug's sheening trail tracking down from its eye like a path of neglected tears. Its harp strings lay smashed at its feet.

Joe remembered the cemetery from the last time he was there. Then, it had been daylight of sorts, a grey flat morning; now, a hideous twilight, the moon gazed brokenly through the trees, washing everything in an empty lonely blue. Like then, he was looking for something, someone, only he couldn't remember who. Last time, Emerson had been with him. Emerson had found the thing they were looking for and Joe had been allowed to touch him again. To grab his shoulder and hope the squeeze of his fingers kneaded his meaning, his feelings, through jacket and shirt. To say 'well done' when really he meant 'I need you.'

But Emerson was not there now. Where was he? He would not desert Joe, not when he needed him, not unless he had no choice. He had to be there somewhere.

A flicker of movement in Joe's peripheral vision caused him to spin around. He felt surprisingly light on his feet, almost balletic. Usually, he was so weighed down with anxiety or tiredness that each step felt like a trudge through slime. But now he could pirouette two, three times without tiring, seeking out his new companion. Out of the skeletons of trees materialised four girls. Four faceless girls in pink dresses, the pale colour of their garments bleeding out slowly into a startled grey. The fronts of their heads were smooth blank ovals and they nodded at him dreamily as they swayed. The shoulder of the first girl glowed brilliantly with a white so bright it was almost inverted to a dazzling black, so painful in its beauty. It seemed to Joe that the last star in the sky had fallen and been laid to rest on this girl's shoulder.

The girls beckoned him forward, leading him deeper into the graveyard. He followed, his feet stepping by themselves in a hypnotic dance. There was no sound, not a single bird sang, not even the night-time frogs croaked. He saw a raven, perched watchingly on a branch but even its 'nevermore' was silent. All was voiceless, all was mute. Even so, Joe felt an inbuilt rhythm pounding, driving him incessantly forward with each footstep ( _doom, doom, doom_ ). He shuddered, wishing Emerson was beside him.

"Do you know where he is?" he asked, addressing the first girl.

True to form, she said nothing, her head tilting in a way that could have been yes, but could have been no. The light on her shoulder flashed suddenly, enlightening the glade. Joe was suddenly aware that he stood before three freshly dug graves, a deathly triptych, and he gasped in horror, a breath that did not even touch the sides as he drew it down, as he saw what lay within them. There were the three faces that most haunted him – Morgan Lamb, the mirrored shard in her chest beaming with reflected brightness, Josie Eagle, her purity ring shining the same, and Emerson. He lay inert, just as he had the night he was shot. His face was tomblike and pale, his eyes glassy, open but sightless.

The silence was broken by the heave of a whisper winding through the trees. The whisper surrounded him in an antiphonal chorus, so he could not tell which of the seven bodies in front of him it came from.

 _Why didn't you save us, Joe? Why didn't you save us? You didn't save us. Save us, save us, save us._

The words hissed and buzzed in his head, crawling through the labyrinthine canals in his ears like tiny insects delving, burrowing, making their nests.

The sound throbbed louder and louder, taking on an insistent metrical pulse. The graveyard in front of his eyes faded into nothingness and Joe found himself in his own bed, the ghastly blues and whites replaced by warm shades, the cream of the bedsheets, the beige of the curtains, the yellow of the sunlight. The deep brown of Emerson's hair was sprawled waywardly on the pillow alongside him. His phone whirred next to him in its usual morning salutation, alerting Joe that it was nearly time to rise and ready himself for another day. The ragged entrails of his nightmare still clung to him, breathing down his neck, goose pimples racing along his arm in a clammy sprint. It was not the first time his dreams had been visited by visions of a mortally wounded Emerson, but this one had been more vivid than most. His chest tightened at the memory, his breath coming in erratic bursts. He felt engrimed with fear, as though a thick layer of dread lay slick upon his body, mixed in with the sweat and sleep and sheets.

Joe lay frozen until he sensed the soft movement of Emerson stir beside him. He was on his side, facing away from Joe, coiled in on himself protectively. Joe had shared a bed with very few people before Emerson, so he had minimal evidence to go on, but he suspected that a person's character was revealed in the way in which they slept. He, Joe, most often slept on his back, legs straight and trim, orderly even in slumber. The only hint of relaxation was in his arms, which might occasionally drape themselves languidly around Emerson's body. Emerson, meanwhile, had two distinct patterns. Either curled around Joe, clinging like a limpet to every spare bit of skin, or else rounded into the foetal position, a defensive circle. He always looked much younger somehow, whichever position he chose. It made Joe's heart swell in tenderness to watch him, motivated to keep him from harm. Looking at him now, feeling Emerson's leg move against his own, finally began to remove the last echoes of the nightmare. Relief washed over him, sluicing off the terror. Emerson was safe beside him, cocooned and secure.

Just to make sure, he reached over to brush a lock of hair out of Emerson's face. Yes, solid skin, smooth hair. The younger man smiled at the touch, the corners of his mouth stretching towards Joe's fingers. He was still asleep – the deep snuffling of his breaths spoke as much – but Joe could sense that he was teetering on the edge of wakefulness. His limbs were beginning to release him from their deathlike grip of night. He was becoming gradually more supple, more moveable, emerging back into his body like a bud opening, or a sunflower turning towards the light. With every breath becoming less like the tomblike vision of Joe's dream. Less like the comatose figure he had but lately been. Emerson rolled over into Joe's side, his arms searching, probing, seeking out Joe's body to cling onto. And Joe clung back desperately.

His breath ghosted over Emerson's hair, the strands dancing lazily in the warm breeze of his exhalation. Just having these mornings together made Joe feel almost, for want of a better word, blessed. Their bed became a hallowed space and all the rest, their bad luck with cases, the curses, the evil they had to grapple with, was cleansed away. Maybe that was why they called marriage a sacrament. It had been six months since he had married Emerson, the man who made him feel strong and weak, fearless and terrified all at once. Two people contracted, bound together, for better and for worse. That Joe had that with Emerson made him feel the luckiest man alive.

Emerson's eyes flickered momentarily, like the curtain of a shrine being pulled back only to drop shut again. Although still dulled with sleep, their brief glance was the final comfort Joe needed. A pilgrim would have to travel a long way to find a more perfect benediction than that.

"Em," he whispered against the cavity of Emerson's ear.

"Mmm?"

"We need to get up."

"Five'm're'minutes… this's'nice…"

"I know it's nice, but you've already had five minutes. I've snoozed the alarm once."

"Snooze it 'gain."

"Emerson," Joe said, attempting to sound stern, a hard task when all he really wanted to do was stay exactly as they were, crooked together in an eternal pause.

Emerson cracked open a single eye. "You're turning into a nag, Joseph Chandler."

Joe laughed, almost silently, his chest vibrating, jolting Emerson's shoulders so the two men juddered in unison. "Well, someone's got to get you moving in the morning."

"You mean like this?" said Emerson, heaving himself up and straddling Joe's hips, an indolent grin awakening his face.

In response, Joe extended an arm to gently brush the crusty remnants of sleep out of Emerson's eyes with his thumb. When he slept, at least when he was undisturbed by night visions or discomfort, Emerson tended to give himself over fully to it. He so completely dedicated himself to the act of sleeping that for some time after waking, slumber still pooled at the fringes of his eyes, blurring his irises and exposing his gaze. His whole body seemed softened by it. Joe was grateful that Emerson could have such nights, such sound restorative sleep that filtered through into his waking eyes. He had been through so much, borne so much, that he deserved all the rest he could get. He needed its dilution, to take the yoke of his travails and dissolve it. Emerson inclined his head into Joe's hand, a soft press of cheek to palm. The weight of his head seemed to act as a substitute for his whole self, and in that movement Joe felt entrusted to carry any burden Emerson asked him to.

Joe leaned upwards to join their lips together in a kiss. It still thrilled him that it felt so natural to do so. An electrifying routine, an extraordinary habit. And didn't that oxymoron just sum up their whole relationship?

"I love you Em. Happy birthday," he said.

Emerson's mouth took on a displeased twist. "Ugh. Don't remind me. I'm getting so old. And I swear the rookies are getting younger. There's a new PC at the station who looks about twelve."

Joe swung his eyes disbelievingly.

"Well," Emerson qualified, "they're probably twenty-something, but anyone who looks younger than me is 'about twelve', I've decided." He smiled. "Though I've officially outlived Jesus, so that's something."

Joe smiled wryly. Time had certainly moved on if Emerson was complaining about getting older. He remembered the young detective with apparently endless enthusiasm, his youthful ally who had not been wizened or disillusioned by the job. Looking at him, he saw how the boy had gone, beaten away by knife, fist and gun. In his place, though, sat a man, a little more life-sore, with a few more grey hairs, an occasional limp and shortness of breath, but still with the dedication and eagerness, and even some of the innocence, that Joe had loved (yes, loved, he could admit that now) from the start.

"If you're getting old, what does that make me?" said Joe.

"Oh, positively ancient," breathed Emerson flirtatiously, as he cupped Joe's face for one more kiss before clambering out of bed towards the shower. "You'll be turning up at weddings moaning about albatrosses next."

Joe's knuckles stretched white as he gripped onto the steering wheel. Emerson couldn't decide whether he looked more like he was holding on for his dear life, or to throttle the life out of it. Emerson shifted in his seat. He was tempted to reach out and stroke his thumb over the back of Joe's hand, but he was worried that Joe might startle if he did. The leather seat squeaked resonantly, and Joe threw it a look of distressed loathing as his fingers twitched fitfully about the rubber wheel. His face slid from a noxious green through fractious orange to livid red as the traffic lights changed in front of them. Uttering a chewed-off curse, he stamped on the brakes with hurried force as the car in front of them crunched to a halt sooner than expected.

"Joe, are you okay?" asked Emerson, quietly, as they came to a full stop.

Joe looked at him with a tight, thin-lipped smile. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Have I done or said something to upset you?"

"What?" Joe's head rotated sharply towards him. "No… no, it's not that. You're fine."

"So there is something bothering you?"

"It's _nothing_ , Emerson." Joe's voice was harsh, gritted, like the crumbs of toast that Emerson was always careful to remove from the butter dish.

Emerson retreated into silence, swallowing the words he wanted to say. A silvery-sour sensation pricked his throat and he didn't trust himself to open his mouth. Turning to face his window, he watched the rain beat against the glass, its drops trickling down quixotically. One bead of water formed an erratic zigzag as it made its way down the window, each time leaving a little of itself behind until Emerson was sure it would perish before it reached the bottom. But the raindrop, stronger than it seemed, struggled on regardless.

The inside of the car glowed a sickly neon again, and they lurched forward with an angry howl. They were driving down Commercial Street now, staggering along in the sluggish traffic. Rain made idlers of everyone, it would seem, judging by the lack of cyclists and walkers on the sodden streets, and the roads were busier than usual. Christ Church, Spitalfields jolted by on their left, its spire rising sharply like a dagger. Back in his student days, Emerson had sung a concert there with his college choir. Little could he have known then that, over ten years later, he would be shot and beaten nearly to death on that very same street, within looming distance of the church. He saw Joe's eyes flick momentarily out of the car into the mizzley street, seeming to be drawn almost involuntarily towards the spot where Emerson had been found that night. His jaw set tighter, clenching still further when he realised that Emerson had noticed. Emerson knew Joe usually avoided driving in this way, but they had been running a little late and this was quicker than any alternative route.

Emerson wasn't sure what had happened, why Joe had abruptly changed mood. He had seemed so relaxed earlier, but now was distracted and agitated. The soft skin of sleep seemed to have been flayed from him leaving him exposed. Come to think of it, the dips under his eyes were darker than usual, his face ashen. His tie, although perfectly tied and straight, somehow gave the impression of being more of a noose than an article of clothing. Joe evidently had not slept particularly well. Emerson could have kicked himself for not noticing sooner. But Joe had been so wonderful all morning, surprising Emerson by slipping into the shower with him, dotting little kisses across the back of his shoulders, massaging his shampoo through his hair, holding him close as the warm water ran over the both of them. And if Emerson had sensed Joe might have been washing off more than just soap, the thought was quickly quashed by long fingers on his face, noses nudging tentatively together, lips pressing, slack-jawed, as teeth and tongues and the insides of their mouths connected. Afterwards they had dressed collaboratively, fastening each other's buttons with intricate fumblings. And as Joe had draped Emerson's own tie around his collar, he had knotted it tenderly, smoothing its tails down over Emerson's breastbone with care.

It had only been as they were readying to leave that a modicum of tension had sidled into the flat and settled, if not between them, then somewhere nearby, hovering expectantly.

"You know I don't really like you riding that contraption," Joe had said as Emerson reached for his helmet and grabbed the keys to his scooter.

"I'm a big boy, Joe. I'll be fine."

Emerson had noticed Joe's neck tendons clench, only slightly, but a definite tightening nonetheless. If he hadn't known what to look for, it would have been unnoticeable, but Emerson knew Joe now. He knew him when he was relaxed, soft as honey, when his voice hummed and his movements were gentle. He knew him as no-one else did. So he also recognised the creeping signs of stress when they first began to crack through Joe's limbs and tendons.

"Well, it's just… I've seen too many people come off those things," he had said. "And it's raining out. It might be slippery on the roads. You'll get soaking wet and you could develop pneumonia, or pleurisy… You _know_ you're more susceptible at the moment."

Letting Joe read all the aftercare leaflets the hospital had sent home with Emerson had been a bad idea. Was it even possible to be a hypochondriac by proxy?

"Why don't you let me drive you in today?" asked Joe. "As it's your birthday. Think of it as part of your present."

"Fine," Emerson had said, replacing his scooter gear on the hall table. "You win. But I get to pick what we listen to on the radio. I'm not really in the mood for John Humphrys being grumpy at politicians today."

In the end, there hadn't been anything Emerson fancied listening to on any of the radio channels. They sat in a fractured silence, broken only by the tick of the car's indicators and the thump of the wipers. He drew his phone out of his pocket, realising that he had left it on silent with the vibrate turned off, hoping he hadn't missed anything important. It would be just his luck. Thankfully, as far as he could tell, there were no missed calls, though several text alerts filled his screen, a strange, imperfectly spelled noticeboard. As was to be expected, they were all variations on the theme of birthday wishes from his former flatmates, his cousins and his auntie, who seemed to have finally accepted that modern technology was typically a tad more reliable than psychic communications at relating everyday messages.

The most recent text was from Erica: _[Happy Birthday Bambi xxxx]_

Emerson pursed his lips in irritation. He really thought Erica would have got bored of that nickname by now. He jabbed at his phone screen in reply. _[Kindly eff off. Or I'll tell Mansell what you were called at school. Happy bday to you too btw ;)]_

Erica was always a prompt replier. _[You should know better than to try to blackmail me Emmy. You better be free Fri night]_

 _[Why? And don't call me Emmy either]_

 _[Mum's coming over so doing dinner ours. You & J, me & Fin and Mum. Fin's cooking.]_

 _[I'll bring the stomach pump then]_

 _[Ha. Ha. So can I count you 2 in then?]_

He turned to look at Joe, who was biting his lower lip in concentration.

"Joe? You up for dinner at Erica and Mansell's on Friday? We've nothing on, have we? Mum's coming over apparently, so we ought to see her really."

"Hmm?" Joe spoke distractedly, his eyes fixed gimlet-like on the road. His nose wrinkled slightly, a tiny tug between his nostrils and upper lip. "They won't want me there."

"What are you talking about?" sighed Emerson. "Erica asked for you specifically. Anyway, they get me, they get you – that's how it works. I'm not going without you. I'm telling her we're coming, okay?"

His fingers wove across his phone screen one last time to reply in the affirmative to Erica, before snapping the device shut and dropping it back into his breast pocket. He had more room in that pocket lately, since he had stopped keeping his appointment diary in it. He preferred now to keep his schedule locked away on an encrypted file on his computer which only he and Joe could access. That had been another of their small changes since Emerson's attack – Joe's idea, but one Emerson could live with. It seemed a bit extreme, perhaps, and occasionally inconvenient, when he needed to check a date and couldn't access the file. But _better safe than sorry_ seemed to be their new motto. It wasn't edgy, but then again, when had they ever been?

"Em?" said Joe, a subdued mewl, which cut straight to the space between Emerson's heart and stomach, replacing his normal voice.

"If you're worried about spending an evening with Mansell, I understand," said Emerson, trying to lighten the mood. "But he seems pretty serious about Erica, so I think we're stuck with him."

"No, it's not that. I just… I don't think your mother likes me very much."

"What? Of course she does."

Joe tore his eyes away from the windscreen to raise his eyebrows doubtfully at Emerson. "She blames me for you getting hurt."

"Oh don't be silly, Joe. She might have been a bit suspicious of your intentions to start with, but she realised you were sincere when I was in hospital. Though why everyone seems to think I need protecting all the time, I'm not sure." Emerson huffed, aiming for joviality but falling somewhat short.

Joe's lips tightened in such a way that suggested he was biting back something, either laughter or pain. It unnerved Emerson that he couldn't tell which it was.

It had been one of those days, as it turned out. One of those nondescript days where the hours rolled into each other indistinguishably, like small waves colliding on a beach, washing away footprints and flattening the sand. A day where somehow Emerson was kept busy, but as the clock spun closer to five thirty, he couldn't quite work out what he'd been doing all shift. Criminals, apparently, didn't go out in the rain either.

He hadn't seen Joe much during the day. He had been in and out all afternoon going between tedious budget meetings, where Emerson knew he would have had to defend their every expense, right down to the new kettle they had acquired when the old one had exploded, and the posh biscuits Ed seemed to favour. If Joe had been tense before that meeting, he would be rock solid by the end, his shoulders cramped in a miniature Gordian knot. Emerson could see him now, scrunched at his desk in an uncomfortable-looking pose, frowning at some paperwork as though it had personally insulted him. Which it possibly had. Emerson massaged the back of his own neck in sympathy, looking forward to getting home where maybe Joe would allow him to do the same for him.

He didn't stare at Joe as often as he used to. Not like before, before he had realised that Joe felt the same way as he did. Back when he thought that looking was all that he would ever have, he had practised the fine art of observation until he became expert, had memorised and could envisage without sight the way that Joe fretted his cufflinks, the fit of his fingers around his pen, the arc of his spine as he leant forward in his chair. Emerson was frankly astounded that he had ever got any work done. Each illicit glance had felt like a tiny theft, albeit a harmless one in which nothing was stolen. Like overhearing a singer rehearse through an open window – the music had not been intended to be shared, but the act of listening did not remove nor damage a single note. It had sometimes made him feel a bit pervy, until he found out that Joe had surreptitiously been doing the same.

Now, though, Emerson had no need to steal glimpses of Joe, no need to savour every smile as if it might be the last, no need to wonder or imagine. He had license to look at him, all of him, whenever he wanted, at home. He had an intimate knowledge of all of Joe's cufflinks, having fastened and unfastened them countless times. And the less said about what he knew about the shape of Joe's fingers and the bow of his back the better, during work hours anyway. Still, on quiet days, Emerson would find that his eyes would sometimes migrate across the Incident Room and alight upon his husband's shoulders, or his neck, or his lips, and nest within their curvatures for a while. It was a cliché, but it felt like coming home.

Emerson's fingers twitched as he watched Joe reach for his Tiger Balm and massage the ointment into his temples, longing to do it for him. But it was not quite the end of the day yet, and they had to remain professional, buttoned back into their respective roles of DI and DC. The unpinning, and undressing, would have to wait. He was finding it increasingly hard to switch from being husband and lover in the evenings and mornings, to being subordinate officer during the day. At some point in the last few months all of his edges had become blurred, as though the bullets that had ripped through his lungs and stomach had also torn the veil that separated his two selves.

A bright _ping_ wrenched Emerson's attention back to his desk. Opening his inbox, he found it was just a mass email from HR about professional development opportunities for officers in the Met.

 _The Metropolitan Police Service is dedicated to your growth and development within the force, and we encourage all officers to make the most of the available training opportunities. The following courses and temporary secondments are currently open for applications. You must seek approval from your commanding officer before applying._

Emerson wondered if he ought to start paying more attention to these emails. His mum had been on at him for a while about his prospects for promotion saying, quite correctly, that he had been a DC for over eight years and wasn't it about time he moved on? But if truth be told, he had never wanted to leave his unit. They had all become like family to him (Joe quite literally) and he couldn't imagine working without Miles' curmudgeonly but affectionate supervision, or Riley's maternal gossiping, or even Mansell's teasing. But lately, he wondered whether a move would be healthier for him – to transfer to a department where he wouldn't be directly underneath Joe. He had always fancied having a go at the Sergeants' exam. Many had been the time when he had almost decided that he would speak to Joe about it, but then he would catch Joe's eyes in his and not be able to bear the thought of leaving him.

As though Emerson's thoughts had suddenly become audible, he heard Joe's voice calling from his office. "Kent, would you come in here a moment?"

"Ooooh," whistled a sing-song voice from somewhere behind Emerson.

As he stood, he felt something light but slightly scratchy bounce off the back of his neck. He turned to see a ball of paper roll under his desk and Mansell, not quite quickly enough, lowering the arm which had clearly just thrown it at him. Instead of looking shamefaced, as Emerson would have expected of most adults caught wastefully flinging stationary around, Mansell grinned in an ebullient leer, and blew a series of sarcastic kisses in Emerson's direction.

"Best not keep hubby waiting," he said.

Emerson exhaled noisily. "Give it a rest, Mansell. Don't you ever get bored?"

"Nah, mate. Not when you make it so easy for me."

Emerson rolled his eyes, muttered _there's a flaw in that logic somewhere_ , and strode into Joe's office.

"Sir?"

Joe picked up his watch from the table and strapped it to his wrist as he stood up from his chair. The squeak of the leather and the ticking of the timepiece together created a pleasing and synchronic rhythm that lent a dancing atmosphere to the small office. It bounced from wall to wall, uplifting as it went, elevating Joe's tense, day-worn mouth into a gentle smile.

"It's after the end of the shift, Emerson," he said.

"And?" Emerson raised his eyebrows.

Joe's brow rose to accept the challenge. Emerson could tell he was trying to look authoritative, or mischievous, or some mixture of the two, but there was a neediness apparent in the corners of his eyes and the bearing of his shoulders that marred the effect. Emerson might have laughed, if Joe's vulnerability didn't feel like a wrench in his heart every time.

With a movement like a wave crashing helplessly onto the shore, Joe pulled Emerson into him. Emerson felt himself submerged in the billows of Joe's jacket, the scent of eucalyptus washing over him.

"I've missed you today," whispered Joe.

Emerson hummed into Joe's neck, his words soaking as liquid into the muscle. "You're a massive softie, you know that?"

His scalp tingled as Joe smiled against his hair. "To my credit, yes I do know that," replied Joe. "I'm sorry I was a bit prickly this morning. I hope it hasn't spoilt your birthday."

"Oh never mind about my birthday. It's just another day. And you haven't spoilt anything. As long as you're alright."

Joe's torso jerked, just a tiny bit, an almost imperceptible tightening and release. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Emerson leant backwards and wiggled Joe's tie knot so that it realigned perfectly with the symmetry of their bodies, then did the same to his own. "You forget how well I know you, Joe." he said, "I can always tell when you're not."

Joe waved his hand dismissively, throwing a slightly distracted look over Emerson's shoulder. A short moment passed, wherein Emerson attempted to follow Joe's line of sight, but the grip of the older man around him prevented him from doing so. Eventually, Joe turned back to him, and with a "Happy birthday, Emerson," spun him around so that he was facing the outer office. To his utter amazement, the sight that met his eyes was that of all of his close colleagues, including Ed, Llewellyn and some of the uniforms, saluting him with drinks in their hands, clustered around a cake. Their chorus of the birthday song was as enthusiastic as it was out of tune. At least three different keys vied for supremacy, until the more ambitious singers realised, as they approached the highest note, that they had overstretched, and promptly dropped out for a beat or two, returning for the final line in tune with Miles, who had gamely kept going throughout. Mansell brought up the rear about half a bar behind everyone else. At the end, Emerson was amused to see all of them take a gulp of their respective drinks, as though toasting the fact that they had got to the end unscathed. It certainly looked as though the Met workplace choir would not be getting any new members from this department.

"Did you plan all this?" Emerson beamed at Joe. "Is _that_ what was bothering you this morning?"

An attractive shade of pink gravitated upwards from Joe's neck as Emerson traced its path with his fingers. "Well, I thought that if we could have a divorce party for Mansell, I didn't see why I couldn't do this for you."

Emerson was so overcome by Joe's sudden demonstrativeness that he didn't notice that he hadn't answered his second question.

Ed was the first to wish him many happy returns, bustling up to him, bound pages in hand.

"My best wishes to you, young Kent," he said. "Or perhaps not so young now, eh? I must confess to doing some digging to find out the year of your birth – solely for the purposes of your gift, you understand. Never fear, I shan't reveal it. Some of the past's secrets are safer kept hidden."

"My gift?" Emerson sincerely hoped that it wasn't another hagstone.

Ed presented the document in his hands with a dramatic flourish. "I give to you a report, a dossier if you will, of a selection of interesting murders that occurred in the year in which you were born. I do hope that you find it enlightening."

Not a hagstone, then, although Emerson was pretty sure his face was forming itself into the same shape that Joe's had when Ed had hung the bizarre amulet around his neck. He pulled his muscles into a semblance of gratitude.

"Wow… er… thanks Ed," he said. "That's really… umm… yeah."

He was torn between feeling touched that Ed had gone to so much trouble for his present, and being slightly disconcerted by the nature of it. It was just like Ed, though. He was always so fervent about everything, so excited by knowledge, mining every corner for a new fact like an enthusiastic mole. And like a mole, he could sometimes be blind to the sensitivities of those around him. He meant well, however, which counted for a lot in Emerson's book.

"Thank you," he said again.

"You are very welcome," replied Ed. "I shall look forward to hearing your thoughts on it when I return next week from the True Crime Writers' convention in Edinburgh. In fact, my research for your gift was very useful preparation for my talk on Making Modern Crimes Ethically Entertaining."

One side of Emerson's brain, the half that still occasionally warped his features in mirrors, was briefly struck by the uncharitable thought that Joe evidently was not providing enough work for Ed to do if he had the time for all of those side projects, but he quickly squashed it down.

"Well, enjoy your trip, Ed," he said, the words only half sticking in his throat.

"Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!" came Mansell's voice, the DC bounding across the Incident Room with Riley in tow. "Don't hog the birthday boy. Some of the rest of us want to have a crack at him."

"Shouldn't you be with Erica?" asked Emerson, his shoulders locking as he braced himself for whatever Mansell had planned. "It's her birthday as well, remember."

"She's on her way here, mate," explained Mansell. "I'm taking her out for supper after this. Then it's back to ours so she can unwrap her own present, and have a bit of afters, if you know what I mean."

Mansell winked in a way that did not fail to turn Emerson's stomach. "Please," he winced, "never, ever say things like that in front of me."

Mansell shrugged. "Suit yourself. But don't expect me to keep quiet the next time I catch you and the Boss having a snog when you think we've all gone home."

Emerson's mouth battled with itself as he tried to decide how to respond. He settled, reluctantly, for allowing his face to blush furiously, once again frustrated that Mansell had bettered him.

"Oh leave them alone, Finlay," said Riley. "It's sweet."

If anything, Emerson's complexion became an even deeper crimson. Of course, he couldn't see his own face, but he recognised the blazing heat creeping across it, taking up residence just underneath his skin.

"So how old are you then, Kent?" asked Mansell. "Forty is it?"

Emerson's calculated and eloquent retort of 'Piss off Mansell' was overshadowed by the older DC's howl of surprise as he was smacked around the head by a dark haired woman who had crept up behind him.

"Hey, you watch it, Fin," said Erica. "You know we're only thirty-four."

"Oh sorry love," said Mansell, squirming around to kiss his girlfriend. "I always forget you two are twins. He's got a lot more grey hair than you do."

Erica and Emerson shared a roll of eyes. Hers rotated anticlockwise while Emerson's always went clockwise for some reason, in a sort of reverse image, like opposite antipodes.

"Nice try," said Erica. "But you're being a twat." She spoke lovingly, though, as she leaned her face briefly against Mansell's cheek.

That had been one of the things that had finally reconciled Emerson to their relationship – that Erica was clearly the one in charge. Stood next to her, Mansell took on the appearance of an oversized rabbit. And the way Erica looked at him – Emerson recognised the glow in her eyes from his own wedding photographs. He cared about her a lot, more than anyone else except for Joe. She was his twin, his oldest and closest confidante, but he realised that he had gone about things in entirely the wrong way when she and Mansell had first got together. Erica had always been the stronger of the two of them, the one to look out for him, the one who bore all his trauma when the Krays attacked him. And then when he was suspended, when it had felt as though his whole life was as torn to shreds as his flesh had been, she had found all the pieces and stitched them back together. She had done so much for him. So his reaction to her going out with Mansell had been some sort of delayed and misplaced machismo, perhaps, trying to prove to himself as much as to everyone else that he could be the protector as much as the one being protected.

"Oh, to be thirty-four again, eh Finlay," sighed Riley.

"Ah stop it," grunted Mansell. "You'll give me a complex. It's bad enough I've got to sit at the desk next to butter-wouldn't-melt over here."

 _Is he talking about me?_ Emerson mouthed to Erica. She shrugged and nodded at the same time, rolling her chin onto her shoulders in rueful but amused support.

Considering everything Emerson had experienced during his time in Whitechapel – the long hours, the threats, the woundings, the times when the fog in the streets seemed to be living inside him as he went about his duties – he was amazed that he had reached the age of thirty-four with his youthful exterior still, apparently, relatively intact. However he may have appeared on the surface, though, underneath his suits he was a patchwork of scar tissue, mended but not wholly healed. Mansell and Riley, and the rest of his colleagues, they didn't see that, or if they did they never mentioned it. To them, he was simply Kent, the youngest wide-eyed DC, diligent and guileless, if occasionally a bit moody. If he was honest, Emerson quite liked that he wasn't defined by his injuries – that they could ignore it. That they could know, but not _know_. Erica knew, and Joe knew. But they were his family, bound in blood and more than blood. They had both seen what the others never would. Yet deeper still, beneath his skin, more buried than bone, lay something that not even Joe was aware of. You could cut Emerson in two, lay him out on Llewellyn's autopsy slab and open him up with a Y-shaped incision, and still you would never find it, so tightly did he keep it locked away. You would locate it on no medical records, on no CV, not in any biography. But it was there all the same, a little kernel at his core that meant that any affectation of unworldliness was a mirage. It wasn't toxic, or destructive, but it was solidly there, a part of him and immovable. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wished others would notice it. But then he would have to explain it, and he wasn't sure he would ever be ready to do that. Until he was, he would just have to put up with a little bit of teasing.

Riley and Mansell had seemed to decide that the occasion of Emerson's birthday was the perfect chance for ultimate winding-up, and were competing to see who could embarrass him the most.

"I bet Kent's never done anything really naughty," smirked Riley. "He's much too young and wholesome."

 _Wholesome, seriously?_ thought Emerson, his head in his hands.

"Ah but he did shag his boss – that's gotta be a point in his (dis)favour," replied Mansell.

"Yeah but that doesn't count," rejoindered Riley. "He wiped the slate clean on that score when he married him. Face it, Finlay, you're a dirty old man next to Emerson."

Emerson snorted. "He's a dirty old man next to most people, Riley."

Mansell swung around to face Emerson, his index finger wagging accusingly. "Come on then, Kent. You must have some dark secret hidden away somewhere. I know you quiet types. There's always something."

"Nope, sorry to disappoint," said Emerson, a little too quickly. "No dodgy stories, no mysterious past, no dirty secrets. Nothing that I'd let on to you lot about anyway."

He purposefully avoided catching Erica's eyes as he passed her on his way to join Joe and Miles, although he felt her gaze burning a borehole into the back of his neck as he walked away.

Joe's car gasped to a halt with a relieved, end-of-day sigh as he drew it into their allocated parking space and turned off the ignition. Home. One more day done with. Joe had lived through far more difficult shifts than the one they had just completed, filled with much more stress, close-calls or monotony. On the scale of bad days, this one should barely have registered. But a patina of anxiety had sat upon him since leaving the apartment that morning, which had soured every minute. It had been an unpleasant surprise, to feel it oozing once again through his pores, after lying dormant for months. Joe knew how it worked, he should have expected it to make an appearance, just when he was at his happiest. But he had begun to hope that, maybe… He knew Emerson had noticed as well, which only made it worse. He didn't want Emerson to worry about him. And he knew he couldn't explain it to him – he could barely rationalise it himself. It was something to do with his nightmare, but it wasn't only that. That had been only a symptom. Everything was good, everything was _good_. It _was_. There was no reason for him to be feeling stressed now. But perhaps that was it – he had been complacent for too long. He had been too carefree, which was only another word for careless. He had been so consumed with his own happiness that he hadn't considered the dangers still out there. They still lurked in his every waking breath, his every footstep, reminding him of what he had nearly lost, and what he might yet throw away if he wasn't vigilant.

Not that the day would have ever ranked as a particularly good one either, even without Joe's festering fear. Budget meetings were not exactly what he had dreamed of when he joined the Police, even back when he had swallowed and regurgitated all of the management bollocks, all the handbooks on modern sustainable policing. Especially not budget meetings where he had to sit meekly in front of the Chief Super while he itemised every single expense Joe's department had made that was 'not proportional to their operating effectivity.' The upshot of which was that, unless their clean-up rate of bringing suspects to trial improved, their resources would be dramatically reduced in the next financial year. Only last week one more had slipped through Joe's fingers like quicksilver. A suspect charged with the grisly murder of three students had had a huge stroke whilst on remand and was now unfit to stand trial, and likely never would be. No one was blaming Joe personally, of course, not for this one. But he had been the one to inform the families of the victims that, once again, the scales of justice had overbalanced on his watch and their children's killer would never have to face what he had done. He had had to watch their last dregs of hope drain from them. The death in their eyes had been worse than any censure or approbation from a senior officer.

It had been getting harder and harder to disassociate himself from the cases. More and more often, Joe would find himself with a single-minded determination to bring down murderers, not just because he was a dedicated policemen and it was his job, but because he knew what it felt to grieve. He had fastened himself inside the skin of the victims' loved ones, the join between his flesh and theirs forming a scab at which he could not stop picking. Was there a special club for bereavement, where all mourners recognised each other and spent their time together as each sad second stretched to an hour? If Bousfield had succeeded in meting out Joe's punishment, if Emerson had died back in January, would Joe, as a fellow member of this club, have been better able to help those families? Would his more acute understanding of loss have meant that he could have offered more than just hollow comfort and recommendations of counselling? Or would he have already left Whitechapel, unable to live with seeing Emerson's face in every crime scene, smelling his scent in every corner of the apartment, watching every motorcyclist who passed him, just in case? In his experience, grief was a solitary companion. It played at being your friend, coddling you and wrapping you up against the world. But it was an abusive partner, forbidding you from your other friendships, bruising you every time you left the house, making you feel as though you would never deserve to be happy.

That had been the main reason why Joe had organised the surprise party for Emerson's birthday. As proof of life, fighting against the death that was only waiting for its next opportunity. Joe had never really been one for birthdays – why mark the passage of time in such an arbitrary way? – but this year, he wanted to celebrate, to rejoice, that not only had Emerson been born at all on some otherwise insignificant date thirty-four years earlier, but that he still lived and breathed with Joe. (To think, that Joe had existed on this date nearly forty times before he had realised its consequence. And to think that this date had passed through on the twelfth year of his existence without him ever being aware of the momentous occasion that had occurred on it.) The previous year, they hadn't been able to mark Emerson's birthday at all due to a big case. Emerson had said that he hadn't minded, when they had both emerged three days later, and it had not really seemed important. It was just a birthday. Another twenty-four hours in the calendar where the air still tasted the same, the sun still struggled through the rainclouds in its valiant, autumn way, and a bin lorry still blocked the end of their road with its acrid girth as they were leaving the house in the morning. That, as much as anything, had haunted Joe as Emerson had lain in his coma, in the gap between living and dying. The thought that he might have no more birthdays, and that they had wasted his last one. That Joe had missed his last opportunity to honour the chance randomness of the universe that had allowed Emerson to be conceived and born. He had decided then that if Emerson recovered, his next birthday would be something a bit more special. Something to prove that he was valued, cherished and loved. And something to show how thankful Joe was that Emerson _was_.

By the time the shift had spluttered to a halt, however, Joe already regretted organising the surprise party. By then, all he wanted to do was take Emerson home. He had sat in his office for the majority of the party, watching remotely, until Miles came to find him.

"What you doing cooped up in here, then?" Miles had asked. "Aren't you coming to join in?"

"It's not for me, it's for him," Joe had replied, nodding towards Emerson, who was enveloped in a crush of people, happy people wishing him well, who didn't want their boss shadowing over the festivities like a spectre at the feast.

"Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. How about a bit of cake? It's not bad actually. I had to get it from somewhere else when the place Judy's sister recommended closed down. Got on the wrong side of some bad PR apparently. Who'da thought there could be such a hoo-hah over sponge and icing, eh?"

Joe had held up his hand, his palm a blockade against the paper plate Miles had tried to thrust his way. "No thank you, Miles. Though I am grateful to you for sourcing and fetching it."

"Well, if I can't buy a mate a cake once in a while…" grinned Miles. "Seriously, though, you don't exactly look as though you're enjoying yourself."

Joe creased his face and shoulders into a form of shrug, affecting nonchalance. He knew Miles would see through it straight away, but it was the attempt that was important. If he couldn't fool Miles, then maybe he could fool himself into composure. Miles coughed out a wheezy sigh, and sat down opposite Joe.

"You were the one who wanted to have this do for him. You came up with the idea in the first place, got us all involved. Why'd you do all that if you didn't want to?"

"I did want to. I _do_ want to. I mean, I want it for him. After everything, he deserves something nice."

"And I'm sure he appreciates it. But I'm also sure he'd much rather just be with you than having all of this. I mean, look at him."

Miles had gestured towards Emerson, stood in the centre of the Incident Room with Riley, Mansell and Erica. His face rested, eyes down, within the bowl of his hands, looking like a child counting to one hundred in a game of hide and seek. Only no-one was hiding, except for Joe. And Emerson wasn't a child anymore, and it wasn't that sort of birthday party. Not that Joe would have been able to recognise it even if it had been. He had never been invited to other children's birthdays when he was a boy. Once, when he was eleven, a boy in his class had asked him along to his summer barbeque, but Joe had spent the entire time washing his hands and throwing suspicious glances at the sausages slowly burning to black over the fire. He had refused to eat anything that he hadn't personally seen prepared from scratch, and had gone home early when the other boys started playing football. He suspected that the boy's parents had made him invite Joe only out of sympathy for his father's death, and he hadn't been asked back.

"Go on, take him home," Miles had urged, as Emerson dismissed himself from the group and started to walk towards Joe. Emerson had taken no persuading to leave, making Joe wonder whether the whole thing had been another waste of time.

"Joe?" Emerson's voice broke through Joe's thoughts, dragging him back to the present, where he realised he was sitting in his car's driving seat, seatbelt still clinched around him, the door open and one of his legs already halfway out. "Are you planning on staying there all night?"

The seatbelt sprang open with a snap and a buzz as Joe extricated himself from the car. He followed Emerson into their building and upstairs to their apartment, locking the door behind them to seal themselves in. He was pleased with the new intruder-proof lock system he had recently had installed, and this, in combination with the familiar smell of the flat – pine and cloves mingled with something inexplicable belonging to Emerson – helped him to shed most of his anxiety along with his overcoat. (Perhaps it lurked in his pockets, waiting for him to leave the flat each day? He would have to get that coat dry cleaned now before he could wear it again.)

Emerson was already leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and living room as Joe entered.

"What would you like for dinner?" Joe asked, stroking his hand down Emerson's upper arm as he passed.

"Hmm," said Emerson, his eyes broadening, "I'm not really in the mood to eat anything at the moment. Not food, anyway." He wrestled his tie back and forth with his left hand, working it loose.

Joe had flicked open a box of matches to light the hob with, but at Emerson's words, he lay it slowly down upon the counter-top. "Oh," he said.

Emerson leisurely drew his lower lip between his teeth. His index finger followed the path of his incisors, dragging his lip down so that Joe could see the cherry-red interior of his mouth. All the while arresting Joe's gaze in his in an unmoving, brazen stare.

" _Oh_ ," breathed Joe again. He felt as though he had swallowed one of the matchsticks, that it had struck itself alight on the walls of his throat and now lay smouldering in his belly.

In one blaze of motion, as a flame rising up a chimney, Joe was across the kitchen. The two of them became all hands, flickering, unfolding, unfurling. Joe always undressed Emerson reverently – lifting his jacket off his shoulders, untucking his shirttails and slipping loose his tie had become a perfect ritual, a ceremony performed with breathless awe. Usually, this was a chance for Joe to adore Emerson, a slow meandering adulation, no less exhilarating for having been carefully rehearsed. But that evening, it felt different, somehow. As Emerson tugged him into the bedroom, Joe felt that there was an urgency that had not been there for a long time. A burning need to feel flesh on flesh and for their skins to shine together. To hold Emerson closer than close as they become one body.

If you had asked Joe before he was with Emerson what he thought about sex, he would have said that he understood people found it enjoyable, but that it wasn't an important part of life for him. In some ways, that still held true. Oh, he wanted Emerson, no-one could ever say that he didn't. But he didn't usually need. Not like this. But for once his body and mind worked in symphony, craving feverishly every fingersoft brush against the upraised hairs on his arms, every sharp bite and lick against his neck, every sub-breath swearing as the proximity of their hips revealed that Emerson was just as hard as he was. They were close, but not close enough. Something crackled between them – a jolt of static. Too many layers divided them, they were confined and constrained by stubborn material that had to be removed, metal and cotton and silk. Joe shifted in frustration and felt as much as he heard Emerson's melodic gasp against him.

He whimpered from the loss of contact as Emerson bent down to discard the remainder of his own clothing, then rose to unbutton, divest and disrobe Joe fully. They stood, facing each other, not quite touching. He could see Emerson's skin everywhere, elevated with goose flesh. His breath too was bumpy, as though his pores and his oxygen were holding each other, poised on the brink. Then something broke as he and Emerson crashed together. Seconds and breaths and pulses became one. Time ceased to have any meaning for Joe and became merely a sequence of separate moments, powered by heartbeats. Each moment stood independently of all the rest, yet could not be divided or unglued from those that came earlier or later. He was on his back, cushioned in bedding, as Emerson arced above him. Another moment, and Emerson was at his middle, doing something wonderful with his mouth. And yet another found him with his arms scrabbling around Emerson's shoulders, pulling him as close as he dared. A succession of icons, picture-framed friezes, yet somehow all was movement. And as the heartbeats pumped faster, the images flashed more frequently. He tried to concentrate on the sensations and not let his mind put a halt on him, as it so often did.

Their positions were switched now, and Emerson lay beneath and around and without of him, his face beautifully lax. All was movement – a shimmering tidal wave of reckless abandon. And all was sense and noise as Emerson teased a sighing incantation from his lips. He did not even care how rumpled the bed sheets were becoming. He would care, later, afterwards. He always did, once the glow had faded and each wrinkle and untucking seemed to sit in judgement upon him. The remembrance of future anxiety almost put a falter into his rhythm. Intimacy had always been tricky for Joe, for he struggled to just let loose and feel without thought. With Emerson it was both effortless and impossible. Effortless because, well, it was Emerson, and nothing felt more natural than seeing, touching, loving and being seen, being touched and being loved. Impossible because, well, it was Joe, and in his mind it was always their first time, all bound up with what Emerson had confessed to him then. He traced his fingers over the tattoo ablaze on Emerson's thigh as he pulled himself closer, trying to ignore the raised peregrination of scars that marked their route around the other side.

"Joe… stop… thinking…" said Emerson, his words sounding as though they were being protractedly wrung out of him, pulled from his lips like a magician's scarf. "Jesus… fuck."

Emerson's mouth formed into the shapes of silent expletives as they both escalated their motions. Joe had never quite decided what he felt about profanity in the bedroom. Screwing, shagging, fucking. There were a lot of words that people used to name the act of sexual union, ranging from the vulgar to the faintly ridiculous, none of which seemed to fit with Joe. For him, their conjunction defied language. Any attempts to put it into words fell woefully short. All he knew was that when he was inside Emerson, deep inside him, with his hand grasped around him, he felt that that was where he was meant to be. And if anything could make his mind go blissfully blank, it was that.

 _Yes that, there, like that._

And then they were liquid together. The room slid and the air boiled. Everything was both out of place and exactly where it needed to be. Joe cried Emerson's name as he came, the syllables all jumbled into the wrong order, vowels and consonants clambering over each other exultantly. His eyes were closed, but at the back of his brain he could see and feel and hear Emerson's own shuddering release.

For a while afterwards, Joe was content to lie loosely next to Emerson, half on top of him really, sipping blood-red kisses like wine from the chalice of his lips. Joe held them in his mouth lightly for safekeeping. Although Emerson offered them to him unconditionally, he still felt as though they were only borrowed, and that he would have to give them back. Hopefully not immediately, but he could see the clock behind Emerson's head flashing out its seconds steadily and uncompromisingly, while his own heartbeat slowed to meet it. Time was ticking again beyond Joe's wish or control.

Emerson had slipped asleep, his breaths still tangling with Joe's. A bead of sweat made a short procession from his brow onto his cheek, curving down and anointing the pillow. Joe brushed away the sheen left behind, leaving no trace of its dedicated path. The come-down was always bittersweet, a glorious aurora mingled with a feeling of something ended. As though eternity itself lasted only a day, infinity encapsulated within the confines of an hour. Outside of which was nothing. There was beauty in the ephemeral, it was more blessed because it faded so soon.

"Happy birthday, my Emerson," whispered Joe into the diminishing light.

That too had lasted only a day.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N:_

 _Some TWs for this chapter, so do please heed. Homophobic language and violence (hinted at), graphic-ish descriptions of crime scenes (including descriptions of the bodies), reference to a true historical crime, manifestations of OCD, swearing._

* * *

The night congealed around him, the air thick with the sluggish hours, treacly and viscous. His duvet clung to him with the weight of all his forgotten dreams, the ones that tormented his mind with their half-formed abstract shapes. The ones where all he could recall was their presence, not their content. Joe was not entirely sure if he'd slept yet. He felt as though he had been lying awake forever – mountains could have risen and fallen in the time it had taken for him to give up on trying to be comfortable. He thought he may have dropped off once or twice, his body defeating his mind momentarily, before being dragged back into a peevish consciousness. In the still dark of trying to sleep there were blanker patches. Patchwork portions of time of which he had no memory. Without looking at the clock, he could not be sure, and at that dead hour of the night all was a void anyway. His mind wandered without aim. Hazy thoughts tripped around his mind, but when he tried to concentrate on them, to capture them, they slipped away leaving no trace. Like a hallucination in the peripheral vision, they were gone as soon as they were looked at directly.

At some point, Emerson had turned away from him so that all Joe could see of him was the back of his head and a thin crest of shoulder. The fingers of one hand curled around the lip of his ear, cradling its shell as a bird would care for its egg. Joe couldn't remember at what point in the night they had separated. He must have been asleep after all. They had started the night as they always did, with Emerson's head roosting on Joe's breastbone, their legs entwined. As Emerson had gradually sunk into a deep sleep, his body had grown heavier, the hand which had stroked, featherlike, upon Joe's collar stilled. Emerson had effectively pinned Joe to the bed, a second, warmer, more reassuring cover. Joe had almost imagined the world flying away, leaving them alone in their embrace, safe in their nest. But Joe's arms were empty now, as though they had been invaded by a cuckoo, stealing that which was most precious to him. The space between him and Emerson felt cold and barren, and he had no recollection of how it got that way. By contrast, his constricting sheets were hot and oppressive. Would he ever find the perfect, fairy-tale balance between too much and too little? He doubted it – he had always been a man of extremes, first pushing away too forcefully, then clinging on too tightly. Too hard, or too soft, never just right.

With a muffled snarl, Joe kicked his legs to free his feet and hoisted himself up onto one elbow to plump his pillow, which had sagged forlornly in the middle. He punched and pummelled it violently into shape, his knuckles sinking with some satisfaction into the bulbous and downy oblong. He closed his eyes, allowing the innocent headrest to bear the brunt of his frustration and dislocation. It felt good – the hostility bubbling down his arm, the crush and spring against his knuckles, the savage gratification at seeing the object bend to the force of his will. He had felt a similar spite when he had hit William Bousfield. It was all a bit of a blur, if he was honest, but he remembered the glow of something approaching pride when he had seen Bousfield's mug shot, his face swollen and purpled from Joe's handiwork. Joe had almost scared himself with his own viciousness, he was not used to such all-consuming anger, but how close Bousfield had come to taking Emerson away from him scared him more. He could not bring himself to regret his actions, not that one anyway.

Emerson moved in his sleep, rolling further over, dragging the duvet with him to enshroud his body more fully.

 _He rolled over like a little fucking bitch._

Bousfield's final words to him echoed, mocking, in Joe's head. He jerked suddenly, aghast and sickened at the turn his mind had taken against his will. His powerful ferocity crumbled, undermined by wheedling words and malicious memories. However much he might revel in the strength of his punches, he would always be defeated by Bousfield's taunting jeers. They connived their way into his head and sat malevolently, tainting all about him. That they could take root now, even in the sanctuary of his and Emerson's bed, repelled and horrified him. While they were there, Joe could not touch his husband, could hardly bear to look at him, or even think about him in the same thought. It was a defilement, a violation of their space to have Bousfield's cruel laugh resounding in his ears while he could also hear Emerson's soft somnolent breathing next to him. The two things didn't, _couldn't_ , match.

He struggled out of bed, using his phone's torch to light his footsteps, and headed towards the bathroom to wash, to rinse his body and mind of all pollution. A dim, sickly light oozed through a small gap in the curtains as he passed the window. He pulled at the two edges of material, catching a glimpse of the sky outside. The heavens were veiled by a yellowish cloud, jaundiced with sodium. It seemed that the sky and all its stars had needed to take shelter, unable to bring themselves to shine any more, and had secreted themselves under the only covering they could find, no matter that it was filthy. Neither was the moon visible. Even had the skies been clear, Joe knew that at that time of night the moon would be hiding just above the horizon, safely concealed from view by office blocks, train tracks and warehouses. It was a dying moon, nearly at the end of its life, with no energy for illuminating anything beyond a thin sliver of itself. The very air felt dirty. But that was London for you, aged, creaking London, so grubby with the past that had never been fully cleaned away.

Joe swallowed a small wave of revulsion and tip-toed across the hall to the bathroom. Emerson had thought it strange at first, Joe knew, that he refused to sleep in the master bedroom – the one with the en-suite. He had understood that Joe needed there to be more than just a thin partition between the bathroom, and what happened in it, what his father had done in it, and the place where he would endeavour to relax, but he hadn't been able to hide a raised expression when Joe attempted to explain. When Emerson had first started staying over, he had slept in the master suite while Joe stayed in his own room, although within a couple of months they had taken to sharing a bed. Emerson had made no complaints about downgrading to be with Joe, but that didn't stop Joe from wondering whether he missed the convenience, the ease, of what he had had before. Far from it being Joe who had provided accommodation for Emerson when he moved in, it was Emerson, always Emerson, who accommodated him.

As he washed Bousfield's leering face down the sink, Joe gazed down at his bare skin, slightly clammy from his overheated bedsheets. A small portion of the air shifted, causing an unsettling chill to crawl down his back. He felt exposed, and not just because he was unclothed, but as though something or someone had unpeeled him and slipped beneath his naked skin. He shivered, and doused himself in the almost boiling water collected in the sink. He scrubbed with vigour at his arms, scraping them pink, scouring away the memory of William Bousfield. With every rub a little more was purged. While he was concentrating on that, Bousfield's face was not visible behind his eyes, his voice did not ring in his ears. And if he could scratch those into oblivion, then he need no longer worry that Emerson would get hurt again. He could rid himself of the anxiety that he, Joe, might somehow by association harm him because his mind had brought Bousfield into their home. If he could destroy Bousfield through the layers of his skin, then Emerson would be safe. One more rub should do it, and just one more, and just one more, and just one more.

He forced himself to pull out the plughole, and watched as the greying water gurgled away. If he listened hard enough, he could still hear Bousfield's callous laughter reverberating in the pipes. His hands, about to refill the sink, were halted in their progress by the shrill squawk of his phone's ringtone. Stirred by the vibrations, the handset nearly slid into the bath, but Joe caught it in time.

"DI Chandler," he said, holding it to his ear, the devices edges feeling severe and uncompromising. At that time of night, it could only really be one thing.

Sure enough, it was Miles' gruff voice that croaked down the line. "Boss? We've got a couple of bodies. Definitely suspicious, almost certainly murdered. Down by the old railway station on Leman Street." His voice was muffled through sleep and the erratic signal. "Riley and Mansell are on their way in. I'm just leaving home now. I'll meet you there as quick as I can so SOCOs can brief us."

Joe sighed. Well, if he was going to be awake anyway, at least now he had something useful to occupy his time. The thought immediately made him feel guilty as he considered the families of the victims, who might not even have been aware of their deaths yet. A murder investigation could not just be a way for him to stave off his inertia. But he was above all things a policeman, and that was what he did. Without murderers, without victims, he would have no purpose. That was what he had dreamt about, not admin, not paperwork, but the chance to set things straight. To avenge the dead and seek justice for the living. And perhaps to save lives along the way. He thought all detectives must have that within them. Miles had told him that it wasn't all car chases and saving the girl at the end, and it wasn't, of course it wasn't. But in Joe's experience, the officers who stopped believing in the possibility of that rarely stayed in CID. They all wanted to do, to make a difference, to count. But for them to avenge the dead, people had to die in the first place. It was all part of the terrible progression, cause and effect and result.

He had already washed everywhere he could and, tempted as he was to cleanse himself again, he pulled himself out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom to dress. Emerson, still deep in sleep, had rolled over again to face the inner part of the bed, towards where Joe had been lying, but facing away from where he now stood. His left arm extended out over both pillows as though seeking out Joe in the unmoving, cold darkness. Joe reached out to wake him, but his hand halted in mid-air. In the murky light, it looked more like a claw, wizened and crooked. He couldn't bring himself to rouse Emerson. He knew he should – they would need the whole team at the crime scene, and he couldn't be seen to be giving his husband any special treatment at work – but something stopped him, as though there was a barrier between him and Emerson, which kept him from laying his fingers on him. A barrier, or was it a shield?

Joe clothed himself secretively, leaving Emerson untouched and unspoiled. At least for the remainder of the night, his innocent sleep could be kept intact. He scribbled a note of explanation, an explanation which left out almost everything, leaving it where Emerson would be sure to find it and left the flat, extracting his spare overcoat from the wardrobe and locking the front door securely behind him.

Miles was waiting for him at the crime scene, rocking from foot to foot while his arms crossed, brushing kinetic warmth into each other. It wasn't exactly cold, the hibernal frosts remained at bay for the time being, and the nip in the air that Joe felt was more likely to be caused by lack of sleep and the early hour than the temperature on the thermometer. However, there was a distinct end of year feel in the air, a fresh staleness in the wind, which caught the back of his throat with a crisp jolt as he breathed in. Miles raised his eyebrows at Joe as he locked his car.

"What've you done with Kent, then?" he asked. "He's not riding that daft bike of his at this time of night is he?"

Joe pursed his lips and looked at the wet pavement. A small puddle had formed in the ridge between road and kerb, and Miles was partially reflected in it, his beige raincoat an eerie pale in the dark water.

"He's not coming," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the watery image of Miles, rather than looking at his friend directly.

"What d'you mean, not coming? Why, is he ill?"

"He's not coming," Joe repeated firmly. "He was sleeping."

"Of course he was sleeping," exclaimed Miles. "I was bloody sleeping as well. What else would you be doing at half three in the pissing morning?"

Joe dropped his car keys into his breast pocket. The jingle they made as they settled into the silk lining sounded louder than normal, a harsh high-pitched chorus cutting through all the other sounds, the whirr of cameras, the plod of feet, the murmur of voices. It punctuated the look of finality Joe hoped was being expressed on his face as he turned back to Miles. Miles threw him a look of his own – a familiar mien, both appraising and paternal – but said nothing.

"Would you care to tell me what we've got here, Miles?" said Joe, impatience sharpening his voice. He was keen to get on and do his job rather than debate why he had taken it upon himself to give one of their team some impromptu time off.

Miles' sideways glance lingered for a few seconds before he answered.

"Right, well," he said, beckoning for Joe to follow as he lifted up the cordon and started to walk towards the white scene of crime tent erected some feet away. "Couple of students walking home after a late night out spotted two bodies hanging from the railway bridge above the old station platform. Apparently they thought they were just early Hallowe'en decorations at first, but when they realised what they were, they called 999 at about two thirty this morning. Victims are two adult males, IC1 and IC3, both look to be in their late twenties or early thirties."

"And they'd been hanged? We're sure it's not just a double suicide?"

"It looks pretty unlikely to be self-inflicted. Go on, you'll see. I've got Riley and Mansell doing a detailed plan of the area. I was going to get Kent to take the statements from the kids who found the bodies, but I suppose one of the uniforms can do that."

Joe ignored the jab as he fastened himself within a forensic suit then ducked through the opening of the tent. Caroline Llewellyn stood with her back to him, assisting a SOCO officer in carrying something heavy to the floor. As they set it down, the object made a dull thump on the ground, a dark shadowy sound. In fact there were two thumps as one end of the object hit the pavement a moment before the other, like a muffled, percussive prologue.

"Give me a second," called Llewellyn over her shoulder. "We've just got the poor things down."

The tent was a large one, but it felt cramped and crowded, filled as it was by police and forensic officers, all vying for space. Amidst their jostling, however, they all seemed to know where they were going. They walked and stood with purpose, as though their every movement had been carefully choreographed. Each had their exits and entrances, as Shakespeare had put it, all bustling around for the sake of the two victims, who had barely reached their third age. None of the people here were novices to a crime scene – they all slipped comfortably into their roles like actors in a play. Only Joe felt like an understudy who had wandered onto the stage by mistake. Finally, Llewellyn directed Joe to the bodies, lying side by side, temporarily covered with sterile sheets. They looked completely out of place on the dark ground, white and still, while all around them was neon and blur, yet none of this activity would be there if they weren't. They were the central characters, but their parts were already over.

"Okay," said Llewellyn. "First things first, I've got IDs for you. Don't you love people who keep their driving licences in their trouser pockets? This one," she pointed at the taller body on the left, "is Paul Sage, aged 35. His companion here is Adam Snow, recently turned 32."

"And what happened to them?" asked Joe.

"Now you know I can't give you anything definitive until after the PM," said Llewellyn, a teasing twinkle in her eye. "But from my initial assessment, it looks like cause of death in both cases was spinal shock from a broken neck."

"Could that have been caused by them jumping from the bridge to hang themselves?"

"Well, if they'd done that, they probably would have broken their necks rather than asphyxiated, yes, but I don't think that's what happened in this case."

She lifted up the sheet covering Paul Sage's face. His skin was mottled, almost maroon in places, his neck swollen and horribly distended. His eyes were shut, Joe was thankful to see. It was always the eyes that haunted Joe the most, the way they looked without seeing. He had been ten years old the first time he had seen dead eyes. He had found a dying frog in their garden when he was out playing by himself. It had obviously got lost and wandered too far from the nearest water, dehydrated and disorientated. Joe knew there was nothing he could do to help it, and he had cradled it in his hands as it slowly passed away, the faint light in its eyes fading to grey. His mother had made him wash his hands five times before he was allowed back inside the house, but he still felt the dead weight of the small creature sitting within his hold. He had had bad dreams for several nights afterwards, in which he was the frog, being steadily crushed to death by two giant hands. His mind could not stop imagining what last things those little eyes saw before they glazed over. A month later, Joe saw that blank stare for the second time when his father died, and the nightmares had returned, only far worse. The frog had sat within his hands ever since.

"If they'd died from a drop hanging," continued Llewellyn, "then I'd expect a lot more bruising higher up the neck from the force of the rope. There are bruises, but not in my opinion consistent with that sort of injury. It's more like what you get with finger marks. I think they were killed first and hung up there afterwards."

"So they definitely didn't hang themselves?"

"Nothing's ever one hundred percent definite, but I would be very uncomfortable in saying that these were suicides. For one thing, I can't see how they would have got up there without help – there was no ladder or anything like that. There are also ligatures around their wrists and ankles, suggestive of having been tied up for some time, and that's not all."

Llewellyn knelt down between the two bodies and rolled down the sheets to their waists. Joe noticed her hands were steady, almost mechanical in their movement. They were in total contrast to his own, which were fidgeting in the air, fighting and fretting against it.

The upper parts of both men were revealed, shocking Joe into stillness. His fingers froze, while his left hand raced towards his mouth, the knuckles crushing into his lips as he swallowed bile. Both bodies had bare chests, without clothing or body hair, except for a small amount of fuzzy down around their navels. They could have been naturally hairless, or shaven, or even waxed, Joe did not have the experience to be able to tell. Apart from that similarity, however, their physiques were almost completely opposite. Paul Sage was darker-skinned, well-built and muscular, while Adam Snow was pallid and skinny. Paul's hair was short-cropped, his scalp shining through, Adam's curled like a whisper around his ears and draped floppily on the ground. The one distinguishing feature they shared, what stood out the most, was the thing Llewellyn was pointing at. On each of their chests, etched out in crimson, were the letters FAG carved into the flesh. The cuts were neat, and had evidently been made with sadistic care. There was very little blood on the bodies, Joe was surprised to see. The lack of blood made it worse, somehow. It was normal for a cut to bleed, and just a little normality would have been welcome. Without it, the marks shouted their message all the louder, their desecration all the plainer, coarse and violent.

But it wasn't that which was making Joe feel nauseous. He had seen far worse in his time in Whitechapel, seen at first hand the horror that one human body can wreak upon another, had experienced the worst that evil had to offer. No, it wasn't the disfiguring letters that upset him. He knew it was impossible, that it was just a horrible coincidence. His head told him not to believe the suggestion his eyes were making, or at least one half of his head did. The other half was screaming, screaming, blocking out almost all else, that he'd made a terrible mistake, and that this pale, lifeless body lying in front of him wasn't Adam Snow at all, but Emerson. He tugged at the tightly bound rubber cuff of the latex glove on his left hand, letting it snap back onto his skin, whipping a wince from his mouth. Llewellyn cocked her head at him curiously. He shook his head, his lips dragging towards his chin in a weighty, bulging frown. Forcing all of his panic downwards, so that it rested in his chest and stomach, showing no ripple on the surface, he looked again at the corpse. It wasn't Emerson, it _wasn't_ , he knew that. And after the initial shock, he found he could catalogue the differences between them. The chin wasn't quite the right shape, and the incline of Emerson's shoulders and collarbone was altogether smoother, less angular. But the eyes, even closed, and the hair, down to the irregular shots of grey weaving through the curls, were strikingly similar. This body wasn't Emerson, or even his double, an imperfect imitation at best. But still… Joe clenched spasmodically, his fingers clamping into sharp squares, like a set of bony teeth grinding against each other. A fruitless wish pulsed through him, stronger with every seizured breath, that he had woken Emerson after Miles' phone call. Just so that he could put them side by side and confirm. At least then he could have been sure, beyond the cruellest, most persistent doubt.

He cleared his throat, his larynx vibrating painfully. There was a salty swollen tang growing somewhere in the region of his tonsils.

"How… how long have they been here?" he asked.

Llewellyn sucked her bottom lip and cocked her head to one side. "I'd say, given the rigor in their jaws, that they've been dead no more than four to six hours. And the lividity is all in their legs and feet, so they were moved here pretty quickly, probably within half an hour of the time of death. I reckon you're looking at a window roughly between ten last night and about one this morning."

The relief overcame Joe, covering him completely, like the sheets Llewellyn was replacing over Paul and Adam. He had been with Emerson all that time. He could personally vouch that he had still been breathing at half past three, well outside of the margin. And anyway, Emerson had still been in bed when Miles had rung, so he couldn't possibly have been hanging by his neck from a railway bridge. Nevertheless, it was reassuring to have it scientifically proven. Evidence and logic, clean and sharp and precise, that was all he needed. Wasn't it?

* * *

Something felt off as soon as Emerson became aware that he was awake. Before he had even opened his eyes he could sense that he was lying alone in a bed that usually had two occupants. The duvet covering him sat in a different way, heavy in all the wrong places, bunching constrictively around his feet but falling short at the top, leaving his shoulders bare and chilly. Cold air shot down his back with every breath he drew. It was one of his pet hates, a bedsheet that didn't perfectly conform to his contours, making him all the more aware that it was a separate entity, that there was a layer of thin space between it and him. He didn't notice it when Joe was there – they made it theirs together – but without him, it felt like a false covering. Like something alien that just didn't fit. Like lungs in a human body, it was simply much more effective and comfortable when there were two within it.

Nothing was quite as it should have been. The object Emerson held closely to him may have smelled like Joe, but it had no supportive shoulders or embracing arms, no warm skin flushed with sleep. Emerson clutched it closer to him, but it just squashed into itself submissively, not returning the embrace or giving back anything in affection at all. His eyes shot open to confirm that, yes, he was in fact cuddling Joe's pillow, the man himself nowhere to be seen. It wasn't unusual for Joe to be up before him, and on many mornings, Emerson would float into waking on the comforting sound of the shower pattering across the hall, or the low murmuring hum of the news bulletin from the living room. But that morning, there was nothing. No sounds, no dry savoury smell of gently toasting bread, no lingering warmth from Joe's side of the bed. Even the air was cold as though it was stood still, having not been touched or passed through for hours. There was only a dead, stale stillness in the flat.

Unlike Joe, Emerson had never lived alone. He had gone from his parents' house to university halls of residence to a flatshare, and from there to living with Joe. When he was younger, he couldn't have afforded London rents on his own, and by the time he could, he found he didn't want to. He liked having someone to come home to, someone to share life with, someone who would notice if he died in his sleep or didn't come home at all. That last point had seemed suddenly unpleasantly relevant after he had been striped, though he had laughed at himself later on for thinking it. It wasn't that he didn't value his privacy, but he had perfected the knack of being alone in a crowded room when he needed to be, and the rest of the time he enjoyed the company. Sharing a house, sharing mealtimes, sharing oxygen, sharing themselves. Their combined experiences, the things they told one another, even when they didn't speak, kept the house alive. He had nearly forgotten what an empty house felt like, deserted like a widow done out in weeds and cobwebs. An empty house was to him like a crime scene, abandoned and waiting to be discovered. There was not enough life in it to fill it, and so every corner became a dark grey hollow where silence filled the air like dust. It disconcerted him to wake from a dreamless sleep into such stagnancy, as though he himself were a corpse, forgotten and left behind. It was funny though, really, when he was alert enough to think about it. Joe could only have been gone a matter of hours at most. For the flat to feel so bereft so soon showed how great, or how small, an impression Joe made. Either he was so inconsequential that he was forgotten the moment he stepped out, or was so essential that even the smallest parting felt like a rent in the fabric of the universe. There was nothing in between.

Emerson felt a light sugary tickle at his nose and carefully plucked from the pillow a single golden strand of Joe's hair, proof that he had been there at one point. He twisted it tightly about his thumb, the colour of the hair showing up darker against his skin than it was when it grew, alive, from Joe's head. It was a thin, fragile filament, though with strength enough to alter the shape of Emerson's finger as it weaved like a chain around it. Centuries ago, people used to keep locks of hair as keepsakes, forget-me-nots. A remnant of the living person after they had died, plaited and fastened securely behind metal clasps. Emerson remembered a family heirloom that had belonged to his great-grandmother, a large lozenge-shaped ring containing a coil of her husband's jet black hair buried within crystal. It had always given him the creeps a bit, which was why it had been left to Erica. The hair, severed and imprisoned as it dulled, had reminded him too much of his own. Part of his own DNA would be coded in those strands that once were part of his great-grandfather, just as Emerson's DNA profile was recorded on the police database, just as it would probably be on file at the hospital since he'd had his skin graft following the striping. Hair, skin, when it came down to it, they were just data and dust. During life, they were shed every day without you noticing, regenerating and regrowing brand new, their detritus filling shelves and mantelpieces and forgotten places. After death, they were your autograph, left behind to identify or commemorate you.

But Joe wasn't dead, he'd presumably just gone into work early. And this strand of hair he had left behind him was just incidental, natural wastage. Emerson shook it from his hand onto the floor, watching it float in the morning light for a second before it disappeared into the carpet like a mirage. As Emerson stretched his limbs, pulsing out the energy of his mind to incite them to movement, his right leg brushed against something harder than the bedsheets. An object that relocated with a rustle down towards his feet with the movement of his shin. Like a dextrous but lazy monkey, Emerson picked it up with his toes and slid it up the bed towards his waist, too sluggish yet to move more. The small parcel delivered into his hands, he saw it was a small piece of lined notepaper, folded neatly but crumpled from its journey down and up the mattress. Joe's meticulous handwriting peeked reticently out of one corner.

 _Emerson,_

 _I'm sorry. There was a call-out. I didn't want to wake you. Find me at work when you come in._

 _All my love,_

 _Joe._

There was nothing else on the paper, the other side of the note as bare as Joe's side of the bed. Emerson swore loudly, knocking his phone off the bedside table in his hurry to get up. His vision blurred blackly, blood rushing like red full-foamed waves in his ears. The roaring in his ears seemed to provide the soundtrack to the morning sky outside as Emerson thrust open the curtains. The sun had only recently risen and the shadows were long. The firmament was rouged, like a face flushed in anger or humiliation. Thin clouds like fingertips scratched across it as though they were painting in the blood of the heavens, leaving their fleeting scars before they were blown away. Already they were scudding across the sky as directed by the wind rather than the force of their own will.

What the hell had Joe been thinking, leaving Emerson to sleep when he should have been working? Did he think that Emerson wasn't up to it, was that it? That he was still frail and vulnerable, an invalid? Invalidated? They hadn't had any very big cases since Joe had finally allowed Emerson back from sick leave, not since before. Emerson had been kept off any murders or violent cases for several weeks, and while he hadn't liked it, and had burned against the chains of his desk with more friction than even the bonds of his coma, he had understood. It had been procedure, due process, to ease him back in gently. But it was now six months on. He was fully certified as fit to work, and he would have thought that Joe, his own husband, would have understood his need to carry on as normal. But perhaps Joe had overheard him having a small coughing fit in the bathroom the other day and hadn't wanted to be burdened with someone who couldn't keep up on a cold, damp crime scene, where the early morning twists of fog might still cling to the pavement and clog up his damaged lungs with their choking vapour. What did Emerson have to do to prove that he was capable? If even Joe had doubts, what must the rest of them have thought?

He groaned, imagining the amount and variety of ways in which Mansell could use this to wind him up. He liked Mansell, he did, on the whole, but the man never missed an opportunity to try to get a rise from him, usually succeeding. And the others, would they think that he had been skiving and got Joe to cover for him? The only thing he could do now was to get himself to the office as soon as he could, well before the official start of the shift. The hour was still early – usually at this time, he and Joe would be enjoying a leisurely morning together. One of them might grab a shower while the other prepared breakfast. Or they might sip their tea curled up together on the sofa in their dressing-gowns, sleepily catching up on the news headlines or just silently breathing each other in. There was something wonderful about the way that Joe smelled in the morning, before he had washed. It was purer, an unblemished scented glimmer of the man beneath the soaps and balms. It delighted Emerson to think that he was probably the only person who was allowed to know it. Sometimes, they would stay in bed as late as they could get away with, simply because they could. But this morning was as far away from those tranquil togethered hours as it was possible to be. Emerson threw on his suit hurriedly (thankfully he had taken on Joe's habit of laying it out the night before), muttering curses when he realised he had done up his shirt wrong, leaving a spare buttonhole flopping uselessly in the top of his collar and an unrequited button hanging at the bottom. The whole shirt sat uneven and out of alignment. It was in such sharp contrast to the way Joe had fastened him up the previous morning, with fluent fingers and a kiss at the end. It was too reminiscent of the years he'd spent pining for Joe, as though his memories of the previous day, and night, were just one more vivid fantasy.

He paused for a moment, a tentative smile warming his face, remembering their closeness of the previous night. It had been a split-second decision, to instigate sex, and he had not been entirely sure that Joe would go along with it. Emerson had just wanted not to think for a while, to iron out the anxiety from Joe's face and in doing so, to pluck it free from his own spirit as well. For the two of them to be only bodies and not minds. It had worked too – he had drifted off into a warm soaked slumber with Joe still loosely inside him and for a time there was nothing else. Nothing but heat and breathing and tenderness. It had been so perfect, too perfect – maybe he _had_ only imagined it?

His phone buzzed rudely from the floor, almost as if it could read the trail of Emerson's thoughts and was exasperated by them. Emerson was exasperated by them himself, if he was honest. He hated that Joe could still make him feel so insecure, just by a sudden and unexpected change to their routine. He dove across the room, hoping his phone might present a message from Joe, in explanation perhaps, or at least to say good morning. He pretended not to feel the surging, sagging disappointment in his chest when he realised that it was only one of those round robin updates from work, informing all teams about a missing 14 year old girl. He dutifully archived the message, though he never really expected to look at it again. She would only be his team's problem if she turned up dead.

Waiting beneath that was a text from Mansell, sent only a couple of minutes earlier.

 _[cant say i blame the boss 4 wantin u 2 keep his bed warm 4 him but bloody hell cld have dun with u there earlier skip sez 2 make urself useful & bring in a round of coffees when u get ere]_

"For fuck's sake, he couldn't even wait half an hour," muttered Emerson. "And has he never heard of punctuation?"

He deleted the message with grim force – he'd remember the coffees without the prompt. And he could do without the reminder that Mansell had been at work, doing and getting on with things, while he, Emerson, had been tucked up obliviously in bed. He had never thought he would see the day when he was outperformed by Finlay Mansell, and it rankled. That thought annoyed him more than anything, though he couldn't say exactly why.

With the text gone, an earlier message from Erica, received about forty-five minutes before Mansell's, was revealed, standing visible and haughty on his home screen.

 _[Heard from your old friend Ollie yesterday. Wanted your address. I take it you haven't told Joe about what you two got up to at uni?]_

Emerson froze mid-scroll, his fingers silhouetted against the bright phone screen. He waited a minute or two before replying. The tension in his fingers was such that he feared he might break the screen with the force of his typing. The screen was already cracked and in need of repair – a thin fissure, barely a hair's breadth, criss-crossed the screen like the string from a spider, waiting to be spun into a web.

 _[There's nothing to tell. Don't have time for this now Erica.]_ He jabbed firmly yet carefully at the screen, before slamming the phone down on the table so that he could finish getting dressed.

He ignored the intrusive _ping_ of her reply that interrupted him as he was leaving the flat.

* * *

The burr of the ringing tone tolled loudly in Joe's ear – _one, two, three_ … It was probably one of his least favourite sounds. When it was the other way around, if someone was telephoning him, it meant action, that he was needed and could be purposeful. He could answer, have the conversation and be done. But when he was the one making the call, all that sound meant was waiting. Waiting, not knowing whether the person on the other end wasn't answering because they weren't with their phone, or because it was on silent, or they were in an unpredictable signal area, or whether they were ignoring him, or worst of all, they were grievously injured and therefore incapable of answering. His imagination would torture him, dreaming up ever more improbable scenarios. The more he cared about the person, the worse it was. He tried to tell himself that he was being irrational, but on at least three occasions, reality had equalled or even surpassed his worst visions. Once, when Ed had been abducted, and twice when Emerson… Joe gripped his left hand around the receiver, a brutal but vain strangulation, and tried to sieve his mind of the images filling it. _Seven, eight, nine_ … He had tried to tune it once, the ringing tone, to ascertain exactly which note of the scale it was that vibrated at him as he held. To catalogue and quantify and keep it fixed in place. He had held the telephone to one ear, and a tuning fork to the other (Emerson had still had one lying around at home from his singing days), and listened carefully. But of course it had been out of tune, the intonation somewhere between an A and an A flat, oscillating between the two but hitting neither. It had felt as though the microtones were laughing at him. _Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…_

He was just about to hang up, when there was a muffled crackling from the other end and a flustered sounding voice answered.

"Ah, Joe, hello," said the voice, breathlessly. "My apologies for not answering right away but I was just alighting my train, and a person whom I would hesitate to call a gentleman was quite deliberately blocking the carriageway with a suitcase of frankly ludicrous proportions. I very nearly had to raise my voice at him. My good man, I said…"

"Ed… Ed," interrupted Joe, knowing that the historian was fully capable of taking fifteen minutes to relate an event which lasted only thirty seconds. Every last detail was, to him, an event worth recording, which was what made him an excellent researcher, but a somewhat infuriating conversationalist. "We've got a double murder, so I can't be long. I was just hoping you might be able to help us with a precedent."

"Oh, well, of course. I have very few notes with me, but I'll be what help I can. Do you need me to return to the station?"

Joe smiled. "Oh no, Ed. Thank you for offering but I'm sure we'll manage a few days without you. You deserve to go on your conference."

"Very well. How can I be of assistance?" Joe had known Ed for many years, and recognised the various inflections of his voice. He thought that Ed sounded just a little bit put out at not being proven indispensable.

"What do you know about carvings on murder victims?"

"Carvings?"

"Yes. Made with a knife, or a blade of some sort. A word, perhaps, or letters, symbols, cut into the flesh."

"Oh, I see." Ed's voice hushed almost to a whisper, and Joe suddenly realised that the archivist was standing on a very public train having a conversation about the most gruesome aspect of a confidential case. That was how leaks happened.

"It doesn't matter," Joe said, quickly. "It can wait until you get back."

"No, no," replied Ed, "Let me just find somewhere a little more private."

There were a series of dense bass thumps, followed by a static rustling that reminded Joe of dusty newspapers. After a moment, Ed's voice, previously only heard as a distant "excuse me, thank you so much", returned to the line.

"Carvings, yes," he said. "As far as I can recall, there have been a number of cases where victims have been tortured and their bodies mutilated in that way. Often, the words carved on the victims had some meaning to the killer, perhaps as a way to explain the killing, or to define the victim according to how the killer saw them. There are cases of girls being branded as prostitutes, even when they weren't, to fit their killer's image of them, for example."

"So the victim would have known their killer?"

"I'd say more often than not, yes. But some of the carvings have never been explained, as the cases were not solved, so it's impossible to say for certain. In fact… yes, I do believe…"

Ed's voice trailed off in thought. Joe could hear the abrasive sound of the train announcement foretelling the stations Ed would be passing on his way to Edinburgh. If only crime investigations could be so clearly prophesied. Then again, having a strict timetable and sticking to it were two completely different things. The one thing that could be predicted with any sort of certainty was that, at some point, a breakdown or a signalling failure or the wrong kind of weather would throw you off course. And if you arrived at your destination at all, there was no guarantee that it would be as you had hoped or expected.

"Ed?" prompted Joe. "Have you thought of something?"

"Ye-es," said Ed, a reflective tilt in his accent, his pitch tumbling from the upper part of his vocal register to his lower notes within one slow word. As he recovered his speech, he became once more the showman, declaiming his narrative with dramatic pauses and a timbre designed to enthral.

"The year was 1947, the place Los Angeles, when a gruesome discovery was made. A woman walking down the street saw what she thought was a mannequin from a clothing store, lying in two parts on the road. It was only as she drew closer that she realised that it was the disfigured corpse of a young woman. She had been mutilated horribly, her face almost unrecognisable, and most ghastly of all, she had been completely severed in twain. The victim's name was Elizabeth Short, but she was also known by another name, a name which has gone down in modern legend – the Black Dahlia."

"The Black Dahlia?" said Joe, a hint of confused recognition shading his voice. "What has that case got to do with ours?"

"Well," replied Ed, "if I remember rightly, I have nothing here to refer to, you see, the letters BD were carved onto her thigh. BD for Black Dahlia, one assumes. There is some confusion as to when she acquired her pseudonym, whether it was in life or in death. The killer was never found so we will never know why he marked her with those characters, but I would hypothesise that it was a form of labelling, so that her identity would forevermore be the mutilated victim, Black Dahlia, rather than the vivacious young Elizabeth Short she once had been."

"He was making sure she was only seen in one way – through his eyes," said Joe, his breath soft and sinister. "He wanted to reduce her to a concept rather than a person."

"That's certainly one interpretation of the known facts," said Ed carefully. "I do know that there is a file on this case in my archive – you may benefit from seeking it out. I shall be returning to Whitechapel on Monday so do k…"

Ed's voice broke jerkily and disappeared into a dead silence, broken twice by jarring crackling, like the sound a firebrand might make when it was hurled into darkness. Even the best phone networks could still be defeated by tunnels and the remoter parts of the British landscape.

Joe replaced the receiver gently back into its cradle, taking care to position it precisely on his desk with the wires curved into two parallel lines, not a kink or a coil out of place. He had just refined its arrangement to his liking, when his startled elbow knocked it all off track with the sudden appearance of Miles at his office door.

"Miles," he grunted in irritation, reaching for his Tiger Balm, thankfully still in its proper position at the other end of the table. The relief of massaging the salve into his forehead was just a momentary top-up – his stress levels were not so high at that moment that it was a necessary rescue, as it often was. That did not mean that it was any less important. In fact, he knew that if he did not refresh the balm regularly, then he would crumple later. Like certain medication, or an addiction, it needed continuous use to have the desired effect.

Miles shuffled into the room. "Sorry sir, didn't mean to make you jump. Just had the initial report back from Llewellyn. The PMs are scheduled for this afternoon, but we've got enough to go on from this for now."

Joe raised his head briefly and gestured for Miles to continue. His eyes met his sergeant's for a second or two, just enough time to recognise the unwanted concern floating there. He scowled and looked away, rearranging the items on his desk once again. The telephone cable was refusing now to sit where Joe dictated.

Miles sat down creakily in the chair across from Joe. "Right," he said, "Llewellyn says that Paul and Adam were most likely to have been dead before they were strung up. Their necks were broken manually, with some force, and they were hung up under the bridge once they were dead."

Joe breathed heavily. "Yes, I know that. She said as much at the crime scene."

"Alright smarty-pants. I'm only repeating what she's just told me. Did she also tell you that the carvings were made ante-mortem, while they were still alive? They were pretty deep too. It must have been bloody agony for them."

"Jesus," whispered Joe. "But… the blood, there should have been more blood, shouldn't there?"

"It was all washed off with disinfectant by the killer," Miles explained. "Before _and_ after death, Llewellyn reckons. Bastard wanted to make it as painful as possible for them before he finally put them out of their misery by snapping their necks."

Joe grimaced, as the loathing he felt for the telephone wire mingled with the horror of what Miles had told him. "Perhaps he also wanted to make the word he carved stand out more clearly. I've just spoken to Ed who thinks that the carving might be a way of labelling the bodies. To reduce their identities to a single concept. He's suggested a precedent. Might that give us a lead on motive?"

Miles blew through his lips with a thoughtful whistle. "FAG - well, there's one obvious possibility…"

"You… you think it might be homophobia?"

Miles shrugged. "I don't know. You were the one who suggested the word might be important. I doubt the killer was trying to advocate the benefits of cigarettes, that's for sure."

"Don't be flippant, Miles." A swell of something both sour and bitter surged through Joe. It wasn't quite anger, but he couldn't place the emotion either. It felt like a poisonous honey trickling down into his stomach. "I want to know if either Adam Snow or Paul Sage were gay, and if they'd ever encountered any discrimination or abuse."

"Okay, sir, we'll get right on it." Miles turned to leave, but paused after a quarter-turn. "Oh and sir, if it turns out they were, try not to take it too personally, alright?"

Joe frowned. "I don't know what you mean. Why would I?"

"No reason at all. Oh look, Kent's turned up." Miles gestured at the outer office, before pointing accusingly at Joe. " _You_ can catch him up with the case."

Joe sat stubbornly at his desk for precisely four minutes (he kept one eye on his watch as it beat obliviously round the dial in its perfect circle over and over and over and over.) He didn't want to give Miles the satisfaction of following him straight out, so he sat and watched as Miles shouted to Emerson, "Hello sleepyhead. What time do you call this?"

He watched Emerson's flustered response as he battled with his belongings, distributing hot drinks among the team, his face flushed and tense. He watched as Emerson replied tersely to Riley's attempts at conversation, though his words were lost in the space between them. He watched as Emerson's eyes slid to meet his, though not with their usual bright gladness at seeing him, then as they sloped away to his computer screen while his fingers tapped their way into the desktop. The cheerful sound of the computer's logging in belied the hooded expression on Emerson's face.

Joe knew what time Emerson's alarm would have gone off, and he could make a fairly educated guess as to what time he would have gotten up and discovered the note. Emerson surely must have rushed more than was healthy to get into work an hour before the official start of the shift. He appeared to have been in such a hurry to leave the flat that he had forgotten his coat, which would now be hanging limply and empty from the hook in the hall, as Adam Snow's body had hung from the bridge. Without that additional layer protecting him, Emerson would have been at the mercy of every bleak breeze and dreary raindrop during his ride to work. A breathy rattle, like wet muddy gravel, emerged from him as he cleared his throat, and although his arms were extended towards his desk, his shoulders were tightly bound to his body, as if to lock in warmth. Well, Emerson would have no need to go outside again for a while, Joe could make sure of that.

Eventually, Joe could watch no longer, and he rose and stepped out into the main Incident Room and towards Emerson's desk, where he was pointedly looking away from Joe. His jaw ticked, pulsing visibly in his cheek in a beat just out of step with Joe's gait.

"We have a case, Kent," he said.

Emerson still didn't look at him, scrolling instead through his small library of unread emails. "Yeah, I'd kind of gathered that much, sir. I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, no-one told me."

Emerson glared at Mansell, his eyes widening and chin clenching, though Joe suspected that the older DC was not the real object of Emerson's wrath.

"Yes, well," he faltered, unsure how to deal with his husband's sudden coldness. His DC, he was his DC, they weren't husbands here. "You're here now. I want you to read the initial report from the crime scene, familiarise yourself with the details, then I need you to locate a precedent in the archives. Ed thinks the Black Dahlia case from 1947 may give us some insight."

Emerson looked up at him then, his eyes wet with confusion. "Sir?"

"As you'll see in the report, the two victims were found in Leman Street with carvings on their bodies. I want you to focus on finding examples of this occurring in past cases, as a guide to what it might indicate."

"But… but, sir, surely…" Emerson stumbled over his speech. "Surely… isn't there something more inter… more useful… I can do? What about interviewing witnesses, background on the vics' families and friends, their work, CCTV?"

"Well someone needs to pop back to the crime scene to go over the site plan in daylight," piped up Miles. "We need to find which direction the killer might have come from, and finish the door-to-door. Might be useful for Kent to go seeing as he didn't get a chance to see it earlier?"

Joe swallowed down a whispery gasp of alarm at the thought of Emerson at the crime scene, alone, coatless, unprotected. His vision blurred, and an unbidden image of Emerson swinging from the bridge entered his head, conflating the man sat in front of him with one of the bodies now lying in the morgue. Bulging eyes stared at him, a thick flaccid tongue flopped in a hellish vernacular, in a horrid mimicry of the man he loved. Joe's fingers twitched as though they were throttling and constricting around an invisible neck.

"No!" he exclaimed, more quickly and more loudly than he had intended. He breathed deeply and spoke again at a calmer level. "No, Kent. I want this to be your priority. Mansell and Riley will be focussing on backgrounds. We can get one of the uniforms to go to the crime scene."

The apparition in front of him dissipated, like the looming night-time shadows, which turned a dressing-gown into a hovering corpse, would fade with the dawn. Even the hurt look on Emerson's face couldn't dampen Joe's relief. Not even the silence broken by the aggressive thump and screech, the sound reminiscent of the oppressive clunk of a cell door locking, as Emerson elevated himself from his desk could make Joe feel anything but reassured.

"Fine, whatever you want, sir," grumbled Emerson. "But I'm not a fucking librarian."

Joe watched the back of Emerson's head as he trudged out of the Incident Room, fixing on him like a beacon until he disappeared from view. In his peripheral vision, he could see Mansell and Riley looking uncertainly at him and at each other. A wave of irritation rose up from his chest and spewed out of his mouth.

"Well?" he said, spinning to face them. "You know what you have to get on with."

As his two DCs obediently set to their tasks, Miles fixed Joe with a stern look.

"Could I have a word with you, sir?" he said. "In private."

Joe wanted to protest, to argue that he had too much to do, but Miles had already started to advance towards Joe's office, practically commandeering Joe with him. He actually held the door open for Joe to walk through, and indicated for the DI to sit down, as though it was Miles' office and not Joe's. Miles calmly clicked the door shut behind him and took his seat, clasping his hands into a pyramid in front of him, while Joe backed warily into the corner of the small room. The fingernails on Miles' hand shone menacingly like sunrise on a battlefield.

Thirty seconds of silence, solid as a doorless wall, passed before Miles spoke. "Are you going to tell me then?"

"What?" mumbled Joe, peevishly.

"What it is that's bothering you."

Joe leaned forward, pressing his palms firmly downwards on the desk to launch him to his feet. "We're in the middle of an investigation, Miles. We can chit-chat later."

Miles raised his voice, not so that anyone outside of the office could hear, but, combined with the steel in his eyes, it left Joe in no doubt that the conversation was far from over. "Sit down, sir. Please. This is about the investigation."

"Well?" snapped Joe, sitting sullenly.

"We've all seen it, sir. Don't think we haven't. The only one who hasn't is Kent, and that's only because you didn't give him a chance to fully catch up before you sent him off."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know who Adam Snow reminds you of." Miles' voice had decrescendoed once again, tiptoeing around itself, needling at every crack in Joe's raised barrier.

"I'm glad you think you can read my mind, Miles. It'll save a lot of pointless conversations like this in the future."

Miles sighed, a resonant huff like a wolfish attempt to blow down the wall.

"Look, I get it, I really do. You've both been through the mill this year. And to be faced with a case like this… I'm just trying to say that you can't keep him wrapped up in cotton wool forever. It was fine when he was still recovering, but you can't just shunt him off down to the archives to do Ed's job, when he's got his own stuff to do. We need him here doing what he's trained for, not fannying about with decades-old books."

"Look it's my team, not yours, to allocate as I see fit." Joe's voice was the one getting louder now, louder and harsher, a rallying cry against invasion. Only whom exactly he was calling upon for defence was unclear. Miles sat firmly between Joe and the rest of the team, a whole staircase and several floors now lay between him and Emerson, assuming that Emerson had gone where Joe had ordered. Usually, it would be Miles himself sitting at Joe's right hand, offering his unconditional support. Well, maybe not unconditional, perhaps, but not since Joe first came to Whitechapel had he felt that he and Miles were on opposite sides. Joe was alone and unaided, barricaded and trapped behind his desk.

"Yes it is," said Miles. "But that doesn't mean that you can't take advice. And they _are_ my team as well, Joe, don't you forget it. _I'm_ the one immediately responsible for them, for their welfare."

"Miles! could you just…" The words burst out of Joe like gunfire, over before they had begun. He didn't even know how he had planned to finish the sentence. Just what? Just get back to work? Back off? Stop being right?

Miles' half smile, a soft stretch at one side of his mouth, was, Joe was sure, intended to be sympathetic. "Look, no-one was happier than I was when the two of you got together. You're clearly made for each other and it's done you both the world of good. Some people might have said I shouldn't have encouraged it, a DI and one of his DCs, but I always knew you'd both keep it professional at work. But if something's changed, if that's no longer the case, then…"

Finally the frustration bubbling beneath the surface burst through. Who did Miles think he was, talking about Joe and Emerson as if he knew more about their relationship than they did? It was none of his business, and Joe was prepared to listen no longer.

"I'll just leave you with that thought, then, sir," were the last words Joe heard as he stormed out of the office.


End file.
